


Before Deraa

by cobweb_diamond



Category: Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 16:27:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1096102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cobweb_diamond/pseuds/cobweb_diamond
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For some reason, Ali had assumed that Lawrence would be better with his English officers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before Deraa

**Author's Note:**

  * For [corialis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/corialis/gifts).



_“Nine-tenths of tactics are certain, and taught in books: but the irrational tenth is like the kingfisher flashing across the pool, and that is the test of generals.”_ \-- T.E. Lawrence

 

Ali is surrounded by men of honour. Prince Faisel, melancholy and tired, is as honourable as they come. Even most of the blustering, ignorant English officers he has been forced to tolerate are honourable, in their way. The truth is that by now, all of the cowards have already fled into the night.

 

Lawrence, however, is a different breed. Ali would label him pragmatic, were it not for the manic glint that lurks in his eye more often than not. From a distance, El Aurens is something to admire. Up close, he is a lunatic who will do whatever he feels like doing, as long as it helps him clear every obstacle in his path. Honour is another matter entirely.

 

Two months into their trek between Turkish railways and outposts, a sandstorm whips up from nowhere and refuses to stop. They cling to the side of a rockface like insects, tents hastily tacked across the wall to stop the sand from flaying them alive.

 

Lawrence leans back, looking for all the world as if he’s relaxing in a sumptuous palace, rather than lying down in a cramped coffin of a makeshift room, hoping that their water supplies will not run out. As always, he is cradling his little book, occasionally taking out his stub of pencil to scribble a few new notes into the margins. The book is always tucked in a pouch under his belt, a replacement for a finished volume that now lurks at the bottom of one of his saddlebags. Ali has little idea what he writes, although he does sometimes see sketches of the camels or little maps showing where they have been. It is not an official report for Lawrence's English masters, at any rate.

 

‘Ah,’ says Lawrence, sighing in satisfaction as another gust of wind slams into their Eastern wall. ‘At this rate, I’ll miss my next meeting with Brighton.”

 

‘At this rate, we will all die of thirst,’ Ali retorts. Their tent is pinned up against the rockface several feet away from the others, giving them the privacy to argue. Which they do, almost constantly, as long as Lawrence indulges him.

 

‘At _any_ rate,’ says Lawrence. ‘I would die first, anyway. I don’t have your capacity for storing water like a camel -- although god only knows where you store it.’

 

Ali glares, although without much heat to it. Lawrence is participating in a protracted and childish chasing game with his English officers, avoiding their messages at all costs unless it comes time for him to ask for more guns or money. Out of curiosity, Ali had accompanied him for his last meeting with one of the many long-faced, bumbling lieutenants that are sent their way with vague orders and “news from home” that Lawrence immediately discards. It had not gone well.

 

In lieu of an office, the lieutenant had sent word to meet with Lawrence in a tea house on the outskirts of a small town near where they were camping. A sun-bleached awning sagged over the doorway, where a child was crouching to peer curiously at the redfaced Englishmen sitting awkwardly inside. Lawrence stepped lightly over the threshold, pausing for a moment for effect as the man looked up, expression freezing into some cross between respect and dismay.

 

‘Afternoon,’ said Lawrence, his posture relaxing in a way that Ali immediately knew was false.

 

‘Lieutenant Forrester, sir.’ His eyes tracked over Ali, dismissing him at a glance. ‘Have you heard from the front?’

 

‘I have heard from damn well nowhere,’ said Lawrence. ‘Happily, I _am_ the front,’ he added, and settled down beside Forrester to pore over the papers laid out over the table. Ali retreated into the shadows, hoping that the lieutenant would forget he was there, and speak freely. 

 

At that point, Ali had still viewed Lawrence as a kind of English version of himself, trusted to be sent out into the desert alone, with only the vaguest of instructions, and to provide miracles. Granted, the miracles Ali performs for Prince Faisel are considerably less dramatic than Lawrence’s feats, but Lawrence has the benefit of being a madman. This meeting with Forrester was the moment when Ali came to realise that the English did not trust Lawrence in the slightest. To this officer, Lawrence was an odd little man who had fallen out of his odd little in an office hundreds of miles away from the real war, and found himself in the desert. And when the desert had spat him out at the other side, their general had rewarded him with a promotion. 

 

As he watched Lawrence sketch out routes on the map, his sharp elbows planted on the little table, Ali could feel it taking form, the suspicion that there was something else going on here that he, Ali, could not follow. Some specifically English nuance that allowed this officer to view Lawrence with that look of distaste, all while treating him with the deference owing to his rank. Unless it was just Lawrence's entrance that had caused it: swirling into the cafe in a cloud of sand powder and pure white Harith robes, with Ali behind him like a shadow. Lawrence is alien to the desert by nature, but somehow he had made himself alien to these English on purpose.

 

Over the course of their meeting, Ali saw Lawrence’s smiles grow wider and his heavy-lidded gaze go quick and sharp, all while the Lieutenant to reduced himself to short, clipped sentences and an ever more straight-backed posture. 

 

‘You are no diplomat,’ Ali said flatly, once the Lieutenant had gone, saluting politely in the doorway before vanishing into the white afternoon sun.

 

Lawrence smoothed his hair down with one hand, gazing unfocused at the dark walls of the cafe. ‘Thank god for that,' he said. 'I shall leave that to you, when the time comes.'

 

So now, Ali can understand why Lawrence wants to avoid these meetings, even if he hasn't quite worked out the exact reason behind it. Lawrence hates bloodshed but avoids diplomacy. He avoids his masters at all costs, but still searches for someone to tell him where to go. He picks a direction and fights his way through until he's left, confused, in the open expanse of desert on the other side, at which point he will turn to Ali and say, Where next? with those blue eyes heedlessly open to the sun.

 

Ali has no doubt that the storm will be gone by morning. It would not dare to do anything else.


End file.
